Duplicated Insanity
by Three Musketeers
Summary: Sora uncovers a twisting trail of deceit and cannot resist the chance to walk it's course. mature content.
1. The Discovery

_**Duplicated Insanity**_

Chapter 1

_The Discovery_

As the starting scrimmage play was whispered among the field, Sora sat watching, attempting to be excited, although he cringes at the thought of football. Sora sighed and tried to concentrate as the ball was thrown about the field. He was only at the practice because his older brother was on the team, and his sister was a cheerleader. They were both having practice. Sora needed a ride home. It was a vicious cycle.

Sora's eyes scanned the field and eventually came to a stop at where his sister was practising with the other cheerleaders. His sister Toile, and his brother Cloud were twins and they always managed to somehow do everything together. They took the same classes and even had practices together even though they did different sports. Sora had always wondered why they'd been named the way they were. Sora meant sky in some other language, he knew that. Cloud was... Cloud. And Toile was some variation of 'etoile' which was french for star. Sky names. It was so odd.

Sora's gaze lingered on his sister for a moment but soon switched to another young girl jumping around in the green miniskirt and top of the squad. He thought it kind of clashed with her hair, which was a bright red.

Kairi.

In Sora's opinion, Kairi was probably the prettiest girl in school. Which made the horrible hours he spent at his siblings practices at least a little better. He watched as Kairi mounted the other girls shoulders, making a pyramid. His sister was on the bottom of the pyramid, because she was one of the "strongest" on the squad.

It occurred to Sora that if this were the truth, there couldn't be very many strong people on the squad. He wasn't too incredibly fond of his sister, not that he would ever tell anyone that. People in their school all looked upon Sora as a really... _'sweet'_ person, who was extremely kind to everyone and loved his family and all that nonsense.

Of course Sora really did love his family, but he grew tired of everyone thinking he was so _perfect._ Other people loved to be thought of as perfect.

Sora didn't.

Everyone else said he was the kindest person they'd ever met, that they would only ever go to him for any advice on their life. And he was tired of it. He didn't _want_ to give the, advice. He needed advice himself.

"Hey! Sora!"

Sora snapped his head to the side and watched as Tidus ran across the bleachers, plunking himself down on the seat beside him.

"Hey... Sora..." he panted. "I... I need some help, man."

Sora fought the urge to slap Tidus, and after several moments, won.

Putting on a fake smile, he said, "Sure! What's the problem?"

"Well," Tidus said slowly. "There's this... Friend of mine..." Sora smiled- A true smile this time. A friend of his. How hilarious. "So this friend of mine, he's like... Having some problems, right? 'Cause this weirdo gay guy is trying to convince him to go out with him, but my friend's not gay! What should he do?"

Sora turned his head away, pretending to think hard. In truth he was trying not to laugh, but Tidus wouldn't be able to tell.

"Well..." he finally declared. "I think... Your friend should just tell this gay guy that he only wants to be friends."

Sora figured that was the funniest answer he could come up with, aside from saying the friend should give it a try. Tidus didn't think so.

"BUT HE DOESN'T WANT TO BE FRIENDS!"

"Oh?"

"NO. HE DOESN'T LIKE THIS GUY AT ALL!"

"Well..." Sora sighed, realizing Tidus would need a real answer. "Okay, then. How about you pretend you're already dating someone else? It might be kind of mean.."

"It's not me! It's my friend!"

"Right. Forgot. Your friend should do that. If this gay guy is really bothering him. But if he's just some kid with a crush, maybe your friend should do his best to ignore...Even saying he just wants to be friends might actually work."

"You think?" Tidus asked.

Sora looked over and saw that Tidus was now gazing into the distance.

"Okay! Bye!"

Tidus leaped to his feet and rushed away.

"Sora!"

_Oh, God. Not another._

"Sora!"

_I'll ignore them..._

"SORA! HELLO! TIME TO LEAVE!"

Sora blinked and jumped up. It was only Cloud.

"Coming!"

Sora rushed over to where Cloud and Toile were standing by the end of the field and put on yet another fake smile.

"Okay... Let's go. I'm going to be late for my appointment!" Toile whined.

Sora followed Cloud and Toile over to Cloud's car (courtesy of their rich father. It was what Sora liked most about his brother. The car) and hopped in. After some bickering on what radio station they wanted to listen to, they left.

When they got home, Sora tried his best to avoid their father. He called to Sora, but Sora said he had a project due, and needed to work on it.

Slamming the door to his room shut, Sora turned on his radio and blasted Dashboard Confessional. He thought he heard someone to tell him to turn it down, but wasn't sure because the music was too loud for him to hear.

He lay on his bed for almost a half hour before finally getting up, and that was only because the CD player was switching to next disc (it was a 5-Disc Changer) and at the current time, he just didn't want to listen to music anymore.

He paused and picked up the phone (he had his own phone line. Spoiled brat) which had begun ringing.

"Yes?"

"Sora! Dude! It's Riku!"

"Riku? I thought you were supposed to be climbing Adams Mountain?"

"I AM! I'm on the mountain right now!"

Sora groaned.

"Really?"

"Yeah! Dude, it's freezing!"

"Well, I would imagine it would be slightly cold at 12 000 feet in the air."

"I'm not at the top yet! But close! Low enough to get a cell signal at least!"

"I could tell."

Sora couldn't believe Riku. He was a complete... Idiot. Calling when he was trying to climb a mountain? Sora never had gotten how Riku found it exciting to do all that climbing, and alpine skiing and everything else he did. But Riku always did it. He missed school a lot to go with his family. Sora had actually considered taking up the crazy things Riku did once, just so he could get of school. But in the end, common sense won him over.

"Well, whatever, man! I gotta go!" Riku shouted.

"Uh... Great."

Sora took the phone from his ear as he heard the dial tone sounding.

"Weirdo..." he muttered.

Sora sighed and hung up the phone. Riku was out climbing, and he was home. Bored. Even climbing some frozen mountain seemed appealing at the moment. He would do anything, he was so bored.

But not give out more advice. He hated doing that.

As if on cue, the phone rang. Tidus was on the other end, begging for more advice.

"I SWEAR IT TO GOD! HE WON'T TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER! HE'S _AT MY FRONT DOOR!_"

"Your front door? So he gave up on your friend then?"

Sora stifled a laugh. Poor Tidus. This guy really liked him/

"Um... Yes. He did. I NEED HELP!"

"Okay, well... Um. What did you say to him?"

"I told him to leave me the fuck alone!"

Sora rolled his eyes.

"Well, that's a good method, Tidus!" he spat. "Fine. Okay...You have to... Tell him that your... Gang will get him. Yeah. Tell him that."

"What? HE WOULDN'T BELIEVE THAT!"

"Probably not, but it's worth a try."

"No, it's not!"

"Well, whatever, then, it's your problem."

Tidus' end of the phone was quiet for awhile.

"Are you feeling okay, Sora? Are you sick? Because this advice really sucks."

"Look, Tidus, you want some advice? Tell the guy you're not interested in... guys in general. That way he won't be personally offended and he'll get that you don't like him. Okay?" Sora sighed.

"Yep!" Tidus gushed. "No problem.!"

Tidus hang up the phone with a beep and Sora was left, once again, with nothing to do.

He needed a party. That would be fun.

Sora grinned and rolled over. Picking up his phone, he dialled the one person he knew could find him a party.

"Hello?"

"Rikku? Hey it's Sora!"

"Hey, Sora!" Rikku bubbled in her usual cheery voice. "What's up?"

"Well... I'm kind of bored. I don't suppose you'd know of any parties going on tonight?"

"Of course I would... But I though you didn't like parties!"

"Well, like I said: I'm bored."

Rikku sighed and gave Sora an address.

'Thanks!"

"No problem... Don't get too drunk."

Sora opened his mouth to reply, but Rikku promptly hung up on him.

_Weird..._

Sora dashed from the house, shouting to his father that he would be back later.

When he got to the place of the party, he knew he'd made the right choice. Vowing to do as Rikku said, he entered the house.

Unfortunately, he didn't keep that vow and was completely smashed within half an hour.

Sora stumbled forward, falling on a couch nearby. Looking up at the island in the center of the room, (it was like a kitchen-living room thing, he guessed) he watched as two young, identical twins performed a girl on girl scene for a bunch of losers standing around, shoving money at them. It was slightly gross in his mind simply because of the incest factor. But other than that, it was hot.

Another boy, also his age he presumed, flopped down on the sofa next to him. Sora didn't look at him, but kept his eyes on the dancing girls.

After some time, the guy next to him came to his senses, and Sora heard him breathe, "Twins..."

Sora looked over. The guy did at the same time. When they came in eye contact, for some reason the guy screamed. Sora did, too. Although, why he didn't know. Someone promptly told them to shut up, and they were thrown outside.

Sora sat up, spitting grass from his mouth.

"What the hell's your problem?" he spat at the guy.

"What's your problem? Going around looking just like me! The nerve!"

Sora blinked and looked over. He was shocked when he looked, at how much the guy did look like him. Except he was blonde.

"...What?"

The blonde guy sighed. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wallet. Flipping through the compartments, he yanked out an ID.

"That's me... Before I dyed my hair."

Sora took the card and looked at him. It was... A picture of him. Kind of. Except it wasn't him. It was... This kid.

He looked up incredulously at the boy sitting in front of him, who held out his hand in a shake.

"I'm Kaz."

"Sora."

There was some silence, but then Kaz asked Sora a question.

"Have you ever met your mom?"

"Huh? No... I live with my father."

Kaz was quiet for a moment.

"I've never met my father. I live with my mom."

Sora thought. He'd never met his mother. Kaz lived with his mother. This kid had never met his father. Sora lived with hi father. They looked exactly alike.

_...What...?_

_

* * *

_  
And that's the first chapter.


	2. The Third Wheel

_**Duplicated Insanity**_

Chapter 2

_The Third Wheel_

It was strange. I had known this Sora kid for about an hour, and already I felt as if we had some sort of... connection. It was like we'd known each other all of our lives, though we'd never met. But for some reason, in my heart, I felt maybe we had met.

That was why Sora and I were in my basement, flipping through old birth records, baby pictures; anything we could find really. Mom wouldn't be home until way late at night, so I figured we'd be safe. It was only 9:30 (PM) anyways.

"Hey! Kaz!"

I looked over and there was Sora, grinning and frantically waving a piece of paper in the air. Shoving aside the box I was digging through, I scrambled to sit beside him.

"Divorce papers?" I asked upon seeing the document Sora was so excited about.

"Yeah!" Sora said, rolling his eyes. "Hello! We can look at the... Well, I don't know what they're called, but the thing that says what each person got..."

Sora read over the top of the document, and immediately seemed to find something worthy.

"John Strife... That's my father's name."

I yanked the paper from Sora's hand. Reading it over, I found what I was looking for. It said, as I knew it would, that Mom would get one child. And 'John' would get the other three.

_Well, okay. So that means... Sora's my... brother. _It was confusing. Ironic, really. Totally coincidental that we had met at that party, and here we turned out to be brothers. Twins would better describe it. I hadn't asked Sora his birth date, but I didn't really need to. I knew it, because it would be the same as mine. That would explain why we looked exactly alike, after all.

I looked over at where Sora was sitting, now staring absent-mindedly into the distance.

"Hey, Sora?"

"Yeah?" he replied turning to look at me.

"I'm psychic."

"Oh, really?" Sora laughed, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah. I know what day you were born on."

Sora simply gave me a blank look.

"August 25th," I told him.

He smiled.

"I know yours, too."

I cocked my head to the side, knowing all to well that he did. It was obvious.

"Probably."

Sora was quiet and got that totally spaced out look on his face again.

After a long interval of silence, he finally spoke.

"I can't believe they didn't tell us."

"Huh?"

Well, of course they didn't tell us. What did he expect?

"It's one thing to split up siblings, you know? But twins is kinda different."

"Yeah..." I said, finally agreeing. Why _didn't _they tell us?

Sora sighed beside me.

"Let's look through the rest of this junk," he said.

Sora and I began to sift through the rest of the old boxes. I moved back to the one I'd been looking through earlier, though it hadn't been very interesting. I plunged my hand into the box and began pulling things out. I found one piece of paper that said "MJ pickup- Old shooting range: June 15- 3 o' clock." I have never met anyone named MJ, which I assumed was short for Mary Jane, but because she was being picked up at a shooting range, I decided I probably didn't want to.

I tossed the paper on the floor and continued rummaging through my box. After reading several notes very similar to that one (I guess Mary Jane went a lot of places...) I found something extremely interesting. At the very bottom of my box (Which was HUGE and about up to my waist, just so you know) was a mother load of...

The Amazing Spider-Man comics!

"Woah!" I shouted. "Why do we have these?"

"Huh?"

I jumped at the other voice but quickly realized it was Sora.

"Oh," I laughed, holding up the comic.

Sora grinned and came over to sit by me.

"What's with all the Spider-Man?" he asked.

"I don't really know..." I replied.

Sora shrugged and began looking through the comics. I joined him and quickly came up with a copy of issue 50, "Spider-Man, No More."

"Hey, that's cool," Sora said when he saw, yanking it from my hand. "Part of the second movie was based on this issue."

"That's great, Sora..." I said, rolling my eyes. How could he even know that?

As if reading my thoughts, he said, "I own it on DVD. It said in the Special Features thing."

"Whatever."

I picked up the last three comics in the box and immediately my eye was caught by the papers underneath. It was what we'd been looking for in the first place.

"Birth records!" I shouted.

"So? We don't need them anymore."

"But it would be interesting to look through them."

Sora sighed and picked up the papers. He frowned as he flipped through the tiny stack.

"These are Cloud's and Toile's... Ours aren't here."

"Well... Let's find them!"

Sora and I both seemed to pick up new drive and zipped around the room, digging through boxes. After 20 minutes of 'hard' labour, I sighed.

"We're never gonna find them!" I shouted.

Angrily, I stamped my foot. And it went right through the floor. Which was, in all truth, freaky.

"Oh my God! Kaz! Are you okay?" Sora gasped.

He rushed over to stand by me, and bent down to move the floorboard around a bit so I could pull my foot out. As soon as my leg was clear of the hole, Sora's eyes widened in surprise.

"Birth records."

"Huh?"

No, it was a hole. That my foot had just gone through. Not birth records. What was he thinking?

"Look!" Sora pulled a pile of documents out of the hole. "They're our birth records!"

"So? Like you said, we don't need 'em."

Sora rolled his eyes.

"We do now!"

"Why?"

"You don't get it, do you? They were hidden! _Hidden!_"

After a moment of thinking I realized with a shock that he was right. Sora had already begun flipping through the papers.

"Oh my god," he breathed. "Look at this!"

He shoved the papers in my face and I read them.

Sora Strife, Kaz Strife and- what the fuck?- Trasien Strife. All born August 25.

"Who...?"

"Not twins," Sora said grimly. "Triplets."

"And they were trying to hide it from us," I finished.

"I think there's something much more big going on here than we think..."

I looked up, eyes locking with Sora's. At that moment we both made a vow to figure out just what was going on. Though neither of us said it aloud, we had made that vow. And we would keep it.

* * *

w00t! Another chapter! Wait... Did I just say 'w00t'? OH, GOD! -Washes mouth with soap- 

Ah, well. At least there's another chapter up!

Captain Snippet


	3. The Waiting

**_Duplicated Insanity_**

Chapter 3

_The Waiting  
_

The tapping became a spasmodic click that went off several times every second, dragging time out, making it longer. At first Sora had tried to tap his pencil on the table with the ticking of the second hand on the clock, but his impatience soon took care of that. Sora tried to will the second hand to match the speed of his pencil, to please _hurry up_ so he could get out of class. Rolling his eyes, Sora drown out thh teacher's, "Sora would you please stop tapping your pencil like that," but he couldn't miss her glare so he tossed the writing utensil down on the desk and began to tap his foot instead. The teacher seemed about to comment on this but instead closed her mouth and continued lecturing the class on God-knows-what.

Sora continued to tap his foot and eventually he picked up his pencil again without even realizing it and soon it was also clicking against his desk. After some time the drumming of wood against wood began to even out and there was a clear amount of taps per each tick of the clock hand. Sora measured these and counted and tried to find out how many taps there were every minute while keeping the beat of his pencil still the same.

He had never felt this bored in a class.

Generally, Sora paid attention to his lessons, did well in school; he was polite to teachers and peers; almost never did he pass in assignments late or get in fights.

Actually, it literally was _never. _Sora's record as completely clean. To date, the only improper thing Sora had ever done was make tapping noises that bothered the teacher when she was speaking. And that had happened once... Which was then. When the bell rang, Sora was almost the first person up and out of the room, whereas usually, he would take his time and make sure he didn't drop anything or knock anything over when he moved- not to say he was particularly neat with his things. He just didn't want to get caught up in the throng of students rushing from the room.

Sora pushed his way into the hallway and breathed in as soon as he had gotten to the safety of his locker. The girl next to him, Jerika, was talking to her friend Eliza excitedly, about the same topic she spoke of _everyday_.

"Oh my God! So, he was all, like, 'wanna smoke some killer weed, baby?' and she was all, 'okay!' and then Rita actually did!"

Rita. The girl did not go to this school. She did not live anywhere near anyone Sora knew. Noone knew this obscure person except for Jerika, and she was absolutely all the teen ever talked about. Sora often wondered if she even existed. But he never said that because, of course; that would just be nasty. Noone else ever said anything either, and Sora could never be positive whether ot not she really existed. Rolling his eyes, Sora shoved his books in his locker and turned away from the chattering teens, heading for the cafeteria.

Sora offered brittle smiles to people that passed him, trying not to let the curve of his lips crumble and fall, betraying the facade he had so carefully set up. Pushing open the double doors he headed for the table he and his friends usually sat at. He hesitated in the center of the cafeteria, not quite letting his foot hit the floor. Sora couldn't really say that he wanted to sit there today. He wasn't really hungry at all. Backing up a few steps, his smile finally faded to be replaced with an almost disbelieving frown. For reasons Sora couldn't quite discern, he suddenly had the overwhelming feeling that the people around him, eating, laughing with friends, should not, could not, be trusted. Turning smartly on his heel he took 7 quick strides and pushed the cafeteria doors open and tore down the hallyway, scaring most everyone he passed.

Finally, he made it through the main entry and, step-stumbling down the stairs, took a deep breath of the air around him. The outdoors air was much fresher, devoid of the lingering scent left behind by too many people in one place. Almost like a smell of collaborative dishonesty that no amounts of air freshener or truths can clear away. As Sora was pacing back and forth at the bottom of the steps, the soles of his shoes slapped angrily against the smooth concrete. He couldn't concentrate with the noise. He wasn't even sure what he was trying to concentrate on. But he knew for sure it wasn't that annoying whapping sound.

Sora slowed his pace.

He winced as his feet scuffled on the pavement, scraping against the few ridges there. Puffing out his cheeks, he flopped down to sit on the stairs. He drummed his hands on his knees, impatient but not quite sure why; tried breathing regularly to calm himself down but it didn't help; massaged his temples-- he didn't have a headache so there was really no point in it though; began nibbling on the corner of his lip, felt like a bunny, stopped.

Impatience quickly fading to anger, Sora began to dig his nails into his knees. It actually made him feel a little bit better. He did it some more. It wasn't until his skin gave way to a tiny flow of blood that Sora stopped, curing and wiping it on his shorts. He jumped as the relative silence around him was broken.

"Hey, Sora, what's up?"

Kairi flopped down beside him.

Sora pulled his shorts down a tiny bit to cover his cuts.

"Nothing... I suppose," he said wistfully, for once not enjoying the red-heads company.

Kairi giggled. "Does doing nothing often make you talk to yourself like that?"

Sora pursed his lips but then forced himself to smile, replying, "I guess it does."

Another giggle. "Must be exciting... But I have to go practice... It's only like our bajillionth practice this week." Sora winced. Kairi was pretty, funny, nice, but sometimes she was just so... _kiddish_. But then he'd never minded that before. He'd always liked that in her. He smiled, a fake one but she bought it. "Hey maybe you should tell your sister to ease up on us, I'm sure she'd listen," Kairi laughed. "To you but not to us."

Another fake smile in return.

"Oh right but I have to go. Bye!"

Kairi leaped up and rushed around the side of the school, heading for the back field. Sora let his fake smile slowly fade into a grimace of contempt.

Contempt. Disgust.

Looking around him at the only mostly green grass and the half-blocked out sun, the rusted gates at the front of the building, Sora couldn't help but be very displeased. With everything. With Kairi's chidish girliness. The annoying Rita who didn't exist except in Jerika's other world, openly publicised next to Sora's locker. The overly loud chatter in the cafeteria.

With himself for not being able to accept these things like before.


End file.
